Japanese Corporation Plans to Turn the Moon Into a Massive Solar Power Plant  

Inhabitat has a post on a particularly unlikely plan for space based solar power - Japanese Corporation Plans to Turn the Moon Into a Massive Solar Power Plant.

Man hasn’t been back to the moon since 1972, but that hasn’t stopped a team of Japanese engineers from developing a plan to turn our celestial neighbor into a massive solar power plant. The disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power station has made Japan think more seriously about alternative energy, and as a result Shimizu Corporation‘s crazy plan has been gaining traction. The plan calls for a massive 12 mile-wide, 6,800 mile long “Luna Ring” of solar panels to be constructed on the moon’s surface. The solar belt would then harness solar power directly from the sun and then beam it straight to Earth via microwaves and lasers.

Shimizu Corporation’s plan would see 13,000 terawatts of continuous energy sent to receiving stations around the Earth, where it will be then distributed to the planet’s population. With NASA’s plans to return the moon currently on hold, Shimizu is planning on building the massive lunar construction project with robots. In fact, humans will barely be involved and will only be present in an overseeing capacity.